Bikie brawl false evidence trial

Bikie brawl false evidence trial - The West Australian

A friend of a senior Coffin Cheater bikie is on trial for giving false evidence to Western Australia’s corruption watchdog over a vicious gang brawl that led to one man being shot and another having three fingers sliced off.

Mohammed Alamdar, of Mosman Park, is accused of giving false and misleading evidence to the Corruption and Crime Commission at secret hearings in 2010 in 2011, following the bikie brawl at the Kwinana Motorplex in Perth’s south.

The showdown between the Coffin Cheaters and the Finks at the motor racing venue in late 2010 left Finks members Stephen Wallace with three fingers missing, David Marrapodi with a gunshot wound and Troy Smith with serious head injuries.

Perth Magistrates Court was told on Monday that Alamdar had struck up friendships with two Coffin Cheaters, including Paul Martino, while installing security windows and doors at their headquarters in Bayswater.

He was summonsed to appear before CCC hearings twice, after investigators established he was present at the Motorplex on the day of the brawl.

Video recordings of Alamdar’s evidence to the CCC were played to magistrate Peter Malone, in which he claimed his memory was impaired after being dropped on his head as a child and consistently said he could not remember details of his association with the Coffin Cheaters.

He initially told the CCC he was not that close to the Coffin Cheaters members, before admitting he had spent time in his native Iran with Martino and the bikie had stayed in the home of his deaf, elderly mother while there.

He was charged with misleading the CCC after giving evidence to former commissioner Len Roberts-Smith that he had not spoken to Martino the day before the brawl, had not travelled with him to the motorplex and had not witnessed the violence.

But phone intercepts revealed he had arranged to drive Martino to the event and even took advice from Martino as to what to wear on the day.

When directly questioned about whether it was his voice on the intercepted phone call, Alamdar said: “That’s not me, buddy.”

Mr Roberts-Smith warned Alamdar at the time that his vague answers could be regarded as “constructive refusal” to answer, and that he could face criminal charges.

A guilty finding could result in a $100,000 fine, or a five-year jail term, or both.

Finks members and associates Smith, Stephen Laurence Silvestro, Clovis Chikonga and Tristan Roger Allbeury have already been jailed for two years on contempt charges relating to the CCC hearings.

Coffin Cheaters members Benjamin Ortin and David Reid were also called before a CCC hearing and refused to answer questions, but avoided charges after the CCC dropped the case.